Night Train to Murder Read online

  ‘I was pretty sure it was you,’ I said. ‘Because you’re the only one who could have unlocked the far door. But I thought I’d better wait before I said anything, just in case you turned out to be somebody I didn’t want to meet. After all, if another person could get through the locked door …’

  ‘Of course, sir,’ Eric said quickly. ‘I could have been the killer! But I’ve been working in the far vestibule all this time and I haven’t seen anyone.’

  ‘Still no luck restoring the lights?’ Penny asked kindly.

  ‘Not a bit, miss,’ said Eric. ‘We’ll have to wait for the engineers to take a look, once we get to Bath.’

  ‘Any idea why the lights only went out in this particular carriage?’ I said.

  ‘I wouldn’t know, sir. I’ve checked all the other carriages, and they’re fine.’ He hesitated, choosing his words carefully. ‘Can I just ask, sir, what are you and the young lady doing in here?’

  ‘Looking for clues,’ I said. ‘It’s what we do.’

  ‘Of course, sir. Very persevering of you. Did you find any?’

  ‘I found something,’ I said. ‘You’d better join the rest of us in First Class, Eric. I may need your assistance.’

  ‘I really shouldn’t, sir,’ Eric said dubiously. ‘I have my other passengers to think of. I mean, what if the lights should happen to fail in another carriage? People could hurt themselves in the dark.’

  ‘If any of the other lights were going to fail, I think they would have done so by now,’ I said. ‘I need you with me, Eric, because I’m about to inform the First-Class passengers what really happened to Sir Dennis. I think you should be there to hear that, as a representative of the railway company. And to back me up, if it should prove necessary to restrain someone.’

  Eric drew himself up. ‘Of course, sir. You can depend on me. But are you sure, sir? I thought we knew how the gentleman died?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘We only thought we did.’

  I led the way out of the darkened carriage. Penny hurried after me, and Eric brought up the rear. I paused for a moment in the vestibule, so that Penny and Eric’s eyes could adjust to the light. Eric gestured at the toilet cubicle.

  ‘Do you need me to open that up again, sir?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘Do you still have your remote control?’

  ‘Of course, sir. Never without it.’ He smiled and patted one of his jacket pockets in a self-important way. ‘All part of my duties; you never know when it might be needed.’

  ‘That’s what I thought,’ I said.

  I went back into First Class, and the first thing I noticed was that Brian wasn’t standing guard at the door. I looked down the compartment and there he was, wrestling with Sita. They were rolling back and forth in the middle of the aisle, both of them putting up a fierce fight. I sighed and cleared my throat loudly. Brian and Sita broke off from what they were doing, looked back and saw me standing there. They both froze where they were.

  ‘What is going on?’ I said.

  ‘Oh, let them play,’ said Penny.

  I looked at her. ‘Am I missing something here?’

  ‘Not for the first time,’ said Penny. ‘Those two have been trying to impress each other for ages. It’s all part of fancying someone.’

  Brian pushed Sita away from him, and they both scrambled to their feet and glared at each other.

  ‘I do not fancy him!’ Sita said loudly.

  ‘I was just doing my duty!’ said Brian, equally loudly.

  ‘What happened?’ I said, keeping my voice carefully neutral.

  ‘She got Howard to distract me,’ Brian said quickly. ‘By saying he’d seen something out the window. When I went to look, she went after her laptop. Thought she could sneak it back to her seat without me noticing. But I didn’t trust anyone here, so I kept an eye on her and caught her at it. She got her laptop down from the luggage rack, and when I took it off her, she attacked me.’

  ‘He threw it on the floor!’ said Sita.

  ‘I thought I told you children to play nicely,’ I said and then looked thoughtfully at Sita. ‘Why did you want your laptop so badly? We’ll be in Bath soon.’

  ‘I wanted to get the story to my editor before then,’ said Sita. ‘I don’t trust you or your people not to slap a D-notice on the whole thing and shut me out. I know how this works!’

  ‘You don’t have the whole story yet,’ I said. ‘I’m about to tell it to you. Now pick up your laptop – and behave.’

  Sita knelt down, grabbed hold of her laptop and then stood up, clutching it to her protectively. I smiled calmly back at her.

  ‘Please find a seat, Sita. You too, Brian. Rupert, Howard, pay attention, please. It’s time for me to explain the exact circumstances leading up to Sir Dennis’s death. Which aren’t at all what you think they are.’

  Sita stared at me for a moment, shocked into silence, and then dropped into the nearest seat. Brian sat down next to her. Howard and Rupert turned completely around in their seats, so they could get a better look at me. Everyone seemed startled, caught off guard, but none of them said anything. I nodded to Eric.

  ‘You can sit down too.’

  ‘It’s really not my place, sir …’

  ‘I won’t tell anyone if you won’t.’

  I gestured for him to go and sit with the others, and he did so reluctantly. I looked at Penny and gestured for her to go back and stand by the door. Just in case. She nodded quickly and took up her position.

  I stood easily in the middle of the aisle, looking from face to face, taking my time. Everyone seemed very eager to hear what I was going to say, and I had to struggle to hold back a satisfied smile. It had been a long hard slog to get to where I was now, and I felt I’d earned the right to make the most of it.

  ‘Do you know who did it?’ Howard said abruptly. ‘Do you know who killed Sir Dennis?’

  ‘Is it one of us, after all?’ said Rupert.

  ‘It can’t be!’ Sita said stubbornly.

  ‘Let me run you through the sequence of events,’ I said, refusing to be hurried. ‘Sir Dennis left this carriage to visit the toilet, after ordering his bodyguard not to accompany him. This was what the killer had been waiting for: his first break. He’d probably have found some way to separate Sir Dennis from his bodyguard, but when presented with such a perfect opportunity, he ran with it.

  ‘So Sir Dennis went out into the vestibule, but before he could use the toilet, someone called out to him. A person Sir Dennis had no reason to suspect, let alone fear. This person lured Sir Dennis into the darkened carriage on some pretext and then attacked and murdered him. Afterwards, the killer arranged the body on the toilet to make it look as if he’d been surprised there.’

  I paused for a moment, so they could all consider the implications. They took it in turns to glance at each other, surprised by this sudden change in what they thought had happened, but none of them said anything. They just turned back and looked at me steadily, waiting for me to continue.

  ‘Of course,’ I said, ‘none of that helped with the main problem: how to identify the murderer. Given that the next carriage along was locked and guarded, cutting us off from the rest of the train, it was obvious that only the people travelling in this carriage were viable suspects. But how could anyone from First Class have got past Penny and me to get to Sir Dennis, without either of us seeing them? The simple answer is that they couldn’t have. The murderer never was any of the people in this compartment.’

  It took a moment, and then Rupert and Howard, Sita and Brian suddenly all looked extremely relieved as they realized they were no longer suspects. They made a variety of pleased and happy noises, and then started to babble, their voices rising as they threw questions at me. I raised a hand and they immediately stopped talking. If there was more, they wanted to hear it. I smiled. It felt good to be on top of the situation at last.

  ‘I forgot, for a while, the first rule of investigating murders. Trust nobody and assume everyone is
lying to you. Which is, of course, what happened here. You all had secrets that you were ready to lie about to conceal the truth from me, but they all emerged during questioning, and none of them appeared to have anything to do with the murder. So if none of you had the motive, means or opportunity to be the killer, what did that leave? It took me a while to remember that all of my reasoning was based on the belief that the next carriage along was completely impassable. I think I accepted that so quickly because I wanted to believe it, because it made my job so much easier if I didn’t have to suspect and question everyone on the train.

  ‘I’d been told the far door to the next carriage was locked and guarded. But I didn’t know that for a fact. I only believed it to be true because the railway guard told me it was. A man in a uniform, whom everyone is used to accepting as an authority figure. But if no one in this carriage could possibly be the killer, then that meant the killer must have come from the other end of the train. Which, in turn, had to mean that the far door wasn’t locked. So the guard must have lied to me.’

  I turned to face the railway guard. ‘And why would you do that, Eric? Because you’re the murderer. You killed Sir Dennis in the darkened carriage and then dumped him in the toilet to confuse things.’

  Everyone turned quickly to look at Eric, who stared blankly back at them. Brian started to rise up out of his seat, but I gestured sharply for him to stay put. He sank back, scowling.

  ‘Not yet, Brian,’ I said. ‘I haven’t finished with Eric yet.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ said Eric. He sounded honestly outraged. ‘I’m not a killer. I’m the train guard.’

  ‘And the next best thing to an invisible man,’ I said. ‘Someone we all take for granted, someone that no one ever challenges, who can turn up anywhere, for any reason. An authority figure on the train, whose word everyone just tends to accept. Hard even to remember, because most people only see the uniform and the function, not the man himself. Which is, of course, what made it so easy for you to kill Sir Dennis. He would never have seen a mere functionary as a threat, not to someone as important as him.’

  Eric jumped to his feet and glared hotly around the compartment before settling on me again.

  ‘You can’t label me a killer, just because you haven’t come up with anyone else to blame!’

  ‘You put a lot of effort into misleading me,’ I said calmly. ‘But once I realized it had to be you, a whole bunch of small but significant facts started dropping into place.’

  ‘This is insane …’ said Eric. ‘You have no proof I’m involved in any of this!’

  ‘I found evidence of Sir Dennis’s death in the next carriage,’ I said. ‘From where the body had been lying on the floor.’ I didn’t go into details; they didn’t need to know. ‘In the end, though, you supplied the main clue yourself, Eric. You used your remote control to unlock the toilet door from the outside. A device you told me could override any electronic system on the train. You were the only person who could have locked the toilet door from the outside, after Sir Dennis had been placed there, making it look as though he’d locked it himself from the inside. And you were the only one who could turn off the lights in just the one carriage and make sure they stayed off. I don’t know why it took me so long to realize all of this. In my defence, I can only say there have been a great many complications and distractions in this case. Not least because you made me waste so much time questioning people who couldn’t possibly have been the murderer.’

  I stopped for a moment to look politely at Eric, but he just stood where he was, saying nothing. So I carried on.

  ‘I don’t see how this could have been a personal killing for you, so it must have been a professional hit. No doubt the authorities in Bath will discover who you’re working for. All I have to do is hold on to you until then.’

  Eric pulled a gun from inside his jacket and pointed it at me, smiling coldly. I stood very still.

  ‘All right,’ I said, ‘I didn’t see that one coming.’

  The three passengers made loud startled noises, and Brian stirred ominously in his seat. Eric waved his gun back and forth, threatening everyone.

  ‘Shut up!’ he said loudly. ‘Everyone stay where they are! I’ll shoot the first one to get out of their seat!’

  The three passengers stayed right where they were. Brian subsided reluctantly. I was a little relieved about that. I could see all kinds of things that could go wrong if Brian was to get involved with a desperate man holding a gun. I took a step forward, to attract Eric’s attention, and he immediately trained his gun on me again. I gave him my best reassuring smile.

  ‘Take it easy, Eric. There’s no need for any unpleasantness. Though I have to ask: if you had a gun all along, why didn’t you just shoot Sir Dennis?’

  ‘Shut up!’ said Eric. ‘You don’t know everything. I had my reasons.’

  He backed down the aisle to the other end of the compartment, to make it easier for him to cover everyone. It was obvious from the way Eric was holding the gun that he didn’t have much experience with firearms. If anything, that made him even more dangerous. An amateur is always going to be more likely to do something unnecessary.

  I glanced quickly around the carriage to make sure no one was planning anything heroic. Rupert and Howard seemed properly intimidated, sinking well down in their seats to make themselves less obvious targets. Sita seemed fascinated by everything that was happening, and not nearly scared enough for her own safety, but at least she wasn’t doing anything to attract attention to herself. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she started taking notes. And then I saw Brian gathering his legs under him, getting ready to jump up out of his seat.

  ‘Stay where you are, Brian!’ I said. ‘That’s an order.’

  He glowered at me but stayed put. He still didn’t look nearly impressed enough by the danger of the situation, so I glared at him.

  ‘I just saved your life, Brian. He would have shot you down long before you could do anything.’

  ‘You don’t know that,’ he said. ‘I might have got lucky.’

  ‘No one’s that lucky,’ I said.

  ‘Someone has to do something!’ Brian said loudly.

  ‘I am doing something,’ I said. ‘I’m talking to the man.’

  And then I realized Eric wasn’t looking at me any more. He’d remembered Penny was standing guard at the other door. Eric smiled and aimed his gun at her.

  ‘You. Get over here. Now!’

  Penny looked at me, and I nodded quickly for her to do as he said. Eric looked rattled enough to shoot her as an example. Penny walked slowly down the aisle, not looking at me or the passengers. Eric waited till she was within reach and then grabbed hold of her, turned her around and pressed his gun against the side of her head.

  ‘Don’t move, girl, or I’ll kill you. I mean it!’

  ‘I believe you,’ Penny said steadily.

  ‘Take it easy, Eric,’ I said, working hard on making my voice sound calm and reassuring. ‘You have a hostage now, and that puts you in charge. So take your time and think about what you’re going to do next.’

  Eric looked quickly around the carriage. ‘Does anyone else have a gun? What about you, Bodyguard? Or you, Mr Jones? And don’t lie! I’ll know!’

  ‘I have a gun,’ I said steadily. ‘I took it off the bodyguard earlier.’

  ‘Take out your gun, Mr Jones,’ said Eric, smiling coldly. ‘Do it slowly and very carefully, and then drop it on the floor. Do it!’

  I removed the gun from my jacket pocket, using just my thumb and forefinger, and dropped it on the floor at my feet.

  ‘Now kick it away from you,’ said Eric.

  I did so, with just enough force that it disappeared under the nearest seat. Out of sight, but not out of mind if I saw a chance to go for it later.

  ‘Anyone else?’ said Eric, glaring around the carriage.

  ‘Brian has a backup weapon,’ I said. ‘A second gun, in a concealed ankle holster.’

  Bria
n looked at me, torn between outrage that I’d given his secret away and astonishment that I even knew about it.

  ‘Give it up, Brian,’ I said. ‘We can’t do anything while Eric has a gun at Penny’s head.’

  For a moment, I wondered whether Brian might do something reckless, but he just made a disgusted sound, drew his gun slowly and then threw it away. I nodded my thanks and then looked back at the guard.

  ‘What now, Eric?’ I said. ‘You’ve got the only gun, and we’re all helpless. But are you really planning to hold us all hostage until we get to Bath, where you must know the authorities will be waiting? What will you do then? Ask for a hostage negotiator, and hope that whatever package deal you can make won’t include a hidden marksman?’

  ‘Shut up!’ said Eric. ‘I’m thinking.’

  ‘Don’t back him into a corner, Ishmael,’ murmured Penny.

  ‘You could always pull the communication cord, Eric,’ I said steadily. ‘Wait for the train to stop, open an exterior door with your remote control, and then jump out and disappear into the countryside. But the driver has strict instructions not to stop for anything, hasn’t he? And if you do pull the cord, the driver will know there’s an emergency on the train, and he’ll warn the authorities.’

  ‘Shut up!’ said Eric. ‘Or I’ll kill the girl!’

  He pressed his gun against Penny’s temple, hard enough to make her wince.

  ‘I’m pretty sure he means it, Ishmael,’ she said steadily.

  ‘I’m just trying to make your situation clear, Eric,’ I said quickly. ‘You’ve got the gun, but there’s nowhere you can go. Your best bet is to make a deal with me, now, before things get out of hand.’

  ‘I’m in control here,’ said Eric.

  ‘For the moment,’ I said. ‘You don’t come across as a professional assassin, Eric, so I’m guessing you were hired just because you were going to be on this train. I’m also guessing the whole thing was arranged in something of a hurry, because this was your employers’ only opportunity to get to Sir Dennis before he took up his new position. But I have to ask, Eric: why did you break Sir Dennis’s neck? That was so obviously foul play. If you didn’t want to shoot him, why not try to make it look like an accident?’